"X" marks the spot -- or not

Bombing Woes? Call in the Specialists

By Rick Horowitz

It's all going very nicely, don't you think?

Assuming, of course, your idea of "very nicely" includes chanting demonstrators, high-level denunciators, rock-throwing mobs, U.S. embassy staff trapped inside their Beijing offices for days on end, mortified apologies every hour on the hour. Not to mention brand-new roadblocks to a settlement in Kosovo, and "collateral damage" to human-rights and arms-control and trade negotiations with a major rival.

And all because we blew a Belgrade bombing run.

We were going after some annoying piece of Yugoslav weapons bureaucracy called the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement. What we hit instead was something called the Chinese Embassy.

Oops.

An "anomaly" -- that's how the red-faced folks are describing it. An "institutional error." By which they mean...?

NATO had bad information. Outdated information, from outdated maps.

Nobody knew, apparently, that the Chinese Embassy had moved to this particular location, 200 yards or so from the Federal Directorate, several years ago; nobody put the new embassy on the updated maps. Then nobody at the Central Intelligence Agency realized that, even though the Chinese Embassy and the Federal Directorate look somewhat alike in aerial-reconnaissance photos, they are -- how to put this? -- different. Then nobody actually verified the Federal Directorate's location from ground level, just to make sure they had the right address.

And then nobody at NATO or the U.S. European Command or the Pentagon's Joint Staff caught the mistake before the bombs were programmed.

"We put an X on the map," explained one U.S. official, "but we put the X in the wrong place."

Oops.

You program your bombs to hit this building instead of that building, the odds are good you're going to hit this building instead of that building. Smart bombs. Stupid everyone else.

Except the pilots, that is. You can't blame the pilots if the bosses relied on the wrong agency. Which is exactly what the bosses did.

They used CIA. They should have used AAA.

With AAA, this never would have happened. I know. I've been using AAA for years -- and I haven't bombed an embassy yet.

Every summer, more or less, we drive from Wisconsin down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And every summer, before we start our trip, we drop in on our friendly neighborhood AAA office. We know we'll be taking pretty much the same route this year that we took the last time, and the time before that: around Chicago into Indiana, then Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and one big swoop across Carolina, from the Smokies to the ocean. Same route every year. Doesn't matter -- we still check in with AAA.

With AAA, you show up at the counter and you tell them where you're going. They pull out a nice big map -- a nice big current map -- and show you the best way to get there. They tell you about any potential trouble spots along the way. Then they pore over a loose-leaf binder they keep behind the counter just to see if there are any new problems -- construction? detours? since the map was printed. They keep their data up to date! There's no way a Chinese Embassy interferes with your travel plans without AAA knowing about it.

And don't forget the TripTiks -- those great little personalized route maps AAA pulls together for you. These TripTiks don't just have your particular highways marked out in high-glow ink, but they also have the places where you can stop along the way for gas or food or a room for the night. And then, for each of the big cities you'll be passing -- and even some of the smaller ones -- they've got extra maps, detailed maps, with all sorts of attractions listed. Places worth noticing.

Do you think AAA would forget to include a Chinese Embassy in Indianapolis, or Knoxville, or Asheville? Not a chance. And Belgrade? All NATO had to do was ask.

It's too bad the allies didn't consider all their options before they got themselves into this mess. After all, there's intelligence -- even Central Intelligence.

And then there's expertise.

Posted 5/11/99. You don't need a map to find your way back here -- just bookmark and click!

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